The Artist's Studio: A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life is an 1855 oil painting on canvas by Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...

. It is located in the Musée d'Orsay

Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France.

Begun in late 1854, he completed it in six weeks. "The world comes to be painted at my studio" said Courbet. The figures in the painting are allegorical

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

 representations of various influences on Courbet's artistic life. On the left are human figures from all levels of society. In the center, Courbet works on a landscape

Landscape

Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...

, while turned away from a nude model who is a symbol of academic art tradition. On the right are friends and associates of Courbet including writers George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

 and Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...

, Champfleury

Champfleury

Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson , who wrote under the name Champfleury, was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction.In 1843 Fleury-Husson moved to Paris...

, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...

, and collector Alfred Bruyas

Alfred Bruyas

Alfred Bruyas was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time, among them Gustave Courbet. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier....

.

The 1855 Paris World Fair

World's Fair

World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...

's jury accepted eleven of Courbet's work, but refused this one. So, in an act of self promotion

Promotion (marketing)

Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix . It is the communication link between sellers and buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential buyer's purchasing decision....

 Courbet, with the help of Jacques-Louis-Alfred Bruyas

Alfred Bruyas

Alfred Bruyas was an art collector and a personal friend of many important artists of his time, among them Gustave Courbet. He donated his collection to the Musée Fabre, in Montpellier....

, opened his own exhibition close to the official exposition; this was a forerunner of the various Salon des Refusés

Salon des Refusés

The Salon des Refusés, French for “exhibition of rejects” , is generally an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.-Background:...

. Very little praise was forthcoming, and Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

 was one of the few painters who supported the work.
Influenced by Diego Velázquez

Diego Velázquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...

's Las Meninas

Las Meninas

Las Meninas is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures...

, this work in turn influenced Edouard Manet

Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....

 in two of his early paintings: The Old Musician

The Old Musician

The Old Musician is an 1862 painting by French painter Édouard Manet, produced during the period when the artist was influenced by Spanish art. The painting also shows the influence of the work of Gustave Courbet...

and La Musique aux Tuileries.

The ghostly female figure visible to the left of Baudelaire (in the right of the painting) is believed to be Baudelaire's mistress, who Baudelaire requested to be painted over.